Sunday, April 22, 2007

Weekend out of the City

My sister Joy and her Scott were visiting us for the weekend. It was a nice relaxing time for us as we started our Saturday with a trip south for a walk around and some small town shopping. Then it was take out from the East Indian Deli and Meats for lunch. Chicken Pakora and Samosas..Yum!


Saturday night it was off to the April Wine Festival 'Wagers and Wine' in town to celebrate our first banee. It was a great night of wine and food sampling with exciting gambling and auctions.


Then up early Sunday morning for the MS Walk with the Biker Babes, see previous posting for details. After a great lunch at the Barley Mill, we headed to Tickleberry's for a traditional treat.


We then enjoyed a relaxing afternoon at home and a great asian dinner that Joy and I prepared. The menu consisted of Dim Sum; Siu Maai, Ha Gow, Lo Mai Gai; Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce; and Crab Puffs.

I love it when we get together with Joy and Scott. We always eat so good and so well.

MS SuperCities Walk


The Biker Babes have completed their first MS Walk of 2007. It was a great morning to get out and support the MS society. The team from Valley First Credit Union was is full costume this morning and ready to get our feet moving. We had a lot of fun with family and friends and supported a great cause while getting active in the community. Way to go Biker Babes and many thanks to all my financial sponsors, you know who you are...

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Juno what I'm talking about....by Scott

This past weekend I was in Saskatoon at the Juno awards. I was on one of the many "Rock Star" flights flying in, on my flight I had Sam Roberts, Mobile and Bob Rock. Bascially the Juno's is one long party weekend. On Friday night we attended the MTV party at a converted country bar. The only problem was that after 2:00am the party was open to everyone. So the clientele of the bar went down hill fast...did I mention this was in Saskatoon? The party went until 4:00am and by that time everyone was feeling really "good". I even helped make sure that the boys from Alexisonfire made it back to the hotel safe as they are good friends with the guys from Billy Talent. The next day we had the Juno Fanfest and Billy Talent was the big draw with approximatly 200 fans in the line for autographs. After the Fanfest it was off to soundcheck, since the guys were only playing one song the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. That night was the CTV party and when we arrived the venue looked like some crazy hollywood party. There were pastel ballons everywhere and the waitresses had pink wigs on and serving finger food. Most people were in their suits and evening gowns and stared at us when we showed up in jeans and black shirts. We stayed for about 10 minutes and left, as one of the guys girlfriends said "it felt like we were at the kids table". We had an early night as we had dress rehearsal the next morning at 10:00am. During dress rehearsal on Sunday we watched Nelly perform her fly in stunt...no comment on this. I did a walk around the arena and checked out the red carpet area, which was very large. After rehearsel we drove back to the hotel to get ready for the show. The red carpet starts with a holding tent area that is jammed with Rock Stars...the band "wrangler" for the junos makes sure we are in postion for the walk down the carpet. Basically the band walks, waves, stops for some pictures, stops for some interviews, stops for some autographs and then repeats the process till they are done. Since the guys are the first act of the night they go right to the dressing room and wait for the call to get ready. The
Stage Manager for the Juno's wants the guys to be backstage 30 minutes before the show starts!!!! this seemed sort of odd so we waited till just before show time to bring the guys out of the dressing room. I'm sure the Stage Manager went through alot of TUMS wondering where we were. So it's show time and I am standing in the darkest part of the stage so the cameras won't pick me up. The guys bang off "Devil in a Midnight Mass" to kick off the show. I take the guys to their seats so they are in postion for the first award. Turns out the floor is GA so patrons are everywhere asking the guys for autographs at their seats. I allow this to happen during comercial breaks only, the security director of the Juno's gives me dirty looks all night becuase I am allowing autographs. By the time the Juno's are over Billy Talent has won 2 awards, and we have to do an additional hour of press. It's now about 8:00pm and we are driving back to the hotel so the guys can get ready for the after parties. There are three big parties Warner Records, EMI Records, and Universal Records. Each party is jammed with people and everyone is wants to talk with members of Billy Talent. Since Ian is the most obvious (with his hair) I stay on his back most of the night and help keep people from bugging him too much. By 5:00am the parties are over and I have everyone back to the Hotel. The next day we fly out and back to Vancouver.